France/Early CtW
CtW guide France does not start off too well. While they are surrounded like the English across the Channel, the French just don't have the luxury of extra room to grow. Westwards, they are blocked off by the Spanish while the east is dominated by the Burgundians in the Alps and the Italians to the south. Your first duties as monarch might be to reinforce the Channel coast and then capture the east: Lorraine, being the heartland of the old Carlovingian empire, has a sizeable pool of labour that should be used to supply your armies. The Iberians are too busy killing one another to really care about crossing the Pyrenees, while the Venetians will probably be more likely to be killing or be killed by the other factions dominating southern central Europe — the Byzantines, Magyar or Bulgars. The pesky Low Countries have long remained unbroken by any king, and thus it might be necessary to show them who is in charge - capturing both territories of Vlannderen and Vrieslan, and upgrading the former to a fortification level of three will grant you a reward of three Merchant Guild cards. Note that Vlannderen is already unified, but Vrieslan is locked in a struggle between Viking settlers and the locals. Should you be playing any faction other than France, it will immediately make offers of an alliance, whenever you control both these territories. Diplomacy-wise, France has one advantage — they start off allied with the Muslim Saracens in Arabia, so any campaigns to bring the English Normans to heel might well work out in your favour. The Muslims, however, are less trustworthy, and it may eventually be that you will betray them, or they betray you. Additionally, France is also one of the Pope's right-hand men, meaning that you might yet be able to take out any of the smaller factions that might be excommunicated or attacked without the threat of interdict, particularly Burgundy.The best way to proceed in would be to gather sufficient tribute, capture Jerusalem, and then make vassal states out of the smaller Catholic factions of Europe, creating a mighty war machine for your eventual rampage into Asia. Remember, however, that killing off any Catholic faction results in an interdict: you may only destroy factions that have destroyed co-religionists without inviting an interdict upon yourself. Of the many factions, there are several ones you should pay special attention to: Spain and Burgundy are small, weak and impoverished, and would make excellent targets for vassalage. Further to the east in the Caucasus lies the small kingdom of Armenia, whose location makes it a prime target for vassalage as well. In fact, you should try to forge an alliance with Armenia as soon as possible because it is the only Christian power east of the Hellespont friendly enough to all other Christian fations. 70px|center CtW objectives *Accumulate 1,000 tribute and conquer your sphere of influence, as well as the following: Latium and Jerusalem *Secondary objective **Capture Vlannderen and Vrieslan and upgrade both regions to a fortification level of 3 in order to receive three Merchant Guild cards. Initial start *Allies: Abbasid Caliphate *Enemies: Almoravid Moors *Territories: Seine Basin (level 3) *file:bonus.png: 2 x Mercenaries Sphere of influence *Italy, being: **Lombardy **Liguria **Corsica **Latium *France, being: **Seine Basin **Normandie **Vreizh **Vrieslan **Lorraine **Loire Valley **Transjurania **Vlaanderen **Helvetia **Guyenne **Provence